Nate Bauer from BlueWhite Illustrated dropped some hard and painful truths about Penn State and men’s basketball during an appearance on “Sports Central with Cory Giger” on Tuesday on WRTA in Altoona.
Bauer said that basically Penn State’s goal is to go .500 every season, being just relevant enough to matter some, but not too relevant where it adds expenses by going to postseason tournaments or having to pay more for a coach because he’s been successful.
This is … well … pathetic, to be honest. But if you’ve followed PSU men’s basketball for any length of time, you know it to be true.
The school needs to make its annual $4 million or so profit off men’s basketball to help pay for all the other athletic programs. If PSU spends too much trying to be more successful in men’s basketball, it runs the risk of losing out financially with the funds it needs to aid the athletic department.
Bauer has covered Penn State basketball for many years and, again, speaks some tough truths here.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.This is the meat of Bauer’s comments:
“The most cynical thing for me to say, and I will say it, is that the best outcome for Penn State basketball from an administrative perspective is for them to go .500 every year. Get close to the postseason because you’re competitive and you make it interesting, you compete with all the best teams, and then miss the postseason. Because guess what? The postseason costs money. And the more that you succeed and the more — until there’s a day where it feels like the return on investment is going to become greater, that with success more money will be coming in, it just is what it is. I don’t see that changing for the program. … There is a ceiling, to a certain extent, as to how much of a return you can get out of this program.”
Check out the entire podcast for more great discussion about the present and future of PSU basketball.
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